Elementary school and Middle school are years of my life that I do not remember very well at all and am not sure how it had a very significant influence on making me the person I am today. I believe that High school was the time of my life that I changed the most and had the most influence on my study habits and behavior. There where however a few things that come to mind when I think of Elementary school memories, mostly teachers that I have faint but fond memories of.
When I was a young child the language that was spoken around my house was Polish since my father is a polish immigrant, who still today has a thick accent, and my mother’s parents were both born in Poland and she tends to speak it to my father. Polish was technically my first language which I knew fluently before I entered preschool when I was forced to change the language I use every day to English. I don’t have any memories of struggling in early grade school but I do have faint memories of being taken out of class every day by the same teacher and going to a separate room with two other classmates and learning reading skills through computer games and work books. Since I never really thought twice about this I called my mom and explained the purpose of this assignment and about the memory of reading lessons. She explained to me how I learned to speak English rather quickly however I was below average in reading and writing. For two years I was part of a special help group for those children who were having a lot of difficulty with reading. This came as a bit of a surprise to me because I remember being in the highest reading levels in middle school and going through a crazy read-aholic phase in sixth and seventh grade. I think it’s depressing that I don’t remember this teacher’s name that used to help me for years just to get on par with other students.
The other teacher who I have very fond memories of was my Band teacher Mr. Jones. I played the trumpet from 4th grade to 8th grade and the most fun i’ve had playing it was in elementary school partially because it was new and exciting to me and my teacher kept on pushing me to succeed at playing. I would have lessons at the end of certain days when other trumpet players and I would go to towards the later part of the school day and I remember it being the best part of my day where I wanted to learn how to play not because I had to but because Mr. Jones made me want to. throughout most of elementary school I do not have very many memories of him, however I do have one that I will always remember and hopefully it will help provide a picture of how amusing he really was. So most days I would spend a good part of my recess break hanging upside down from my legs on monkey bars for reasons I can’t possible imagine, however one day he noticed that I always hung upside down on them and walked up to me. He told me that if I kept on hanging upside down like that my brain would begin to ooze out of my ears. After thinking about it for a second I responded that it couldn’t possible happen. He just tilts his head and tells me “Adam, would I ever lie to you?” and that stumped me so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. It was humor and an overall attitude like that that made me really enjoy being his student. Just being funny doesn’t really cut it to be a great memorable teacher but I was in 5th grade and didn’t have the attention span beyond that.
When I was a young child the language that was spoken around my house was Polish since my father is a polish immigrant, who still today has a thick accent, and my mother’s parents were both born in Poland and she tends to speak it to my father. Polish was technically my first language which I knew fluently before I entered preschool when I was forced to change the language I use every day to English. I don’t have any memories of struggling in early grade school but I do have faint memories of being taken out of class every day by the same teacher and going to a separate room with two other classmates and learning reading skills through computer games and work books. Since I never really thought twice about this I called my mom and explained the purpose of this assignment and about the memory of reading lessons. She explained to me how I learned to speak English rather quickly however I was below average in reading and writing. For two years I was part of a special help group for those children who were having a lot of difficulty with reading. This came as a bit of a surprise to me because I remember being in the highest reading levels in middle school and going through a crazy read-aholic phase in sixth and seventh grade. I think it’s depressing that I don’t remember this teacher’s name that used to help me for years just to get on par with other students.
The other teacher who I have very fond memories of was my Band teacher Mr. Jones. I played the trumpet from 4th grade to 8th grade and the most fun i’ve had playing it was in elementary school partially because it was new and exciting to me and my teacher kept on pushing me to succeed at playing. I would have lessons at the end of certain days when other trumpet players and I would go to towards the later part of the school day and I remember it being the best part of my day where I wanted to learn how to play not because I had to but because Mr. Jones made me want to. throughout most of elementary school I do not have very many memories of him, however I do have one that I will always remember and hopefully it will help provide a picture of how amusing he really was. So most days I would spend a good part of my recess break hanging upside down from my legs on monkey bars for reasons I can’t possible imagine, however one day he noticed that I always hung upside down on them and walked up to me. He told me that if I kept on hanging upside down like that my brain would begin to ooze out of my ears. After thinking about it for a second I responded that it couldn’t possible happen. He just tilts his head and tells me “Adam, would I ever lie to you?” and that stumped me so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. It was humor and an overall attitude like that that made me really enjoy being his student. Just being funny doesn’t really cut it to be a great memorable teacher but I was in 5th grade and didn’t have the attention span beyond that.